Chapter 20
Ryan
Running didn’t help. Not that I’d expected it to. There was only so far I could go in my pyjamas before I was fucking freezing. At least I’d shoved my feet into my trainers before sprinting out the door.
I trudged back up to the steps to the cabin, bracing myself to face Dom. He’d want an explanation for me taking off like that. And an apology. I couldn’t blame him either, not after he’d done something so damn…thoughtful.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew his motives weren’t entirely altruistic. Dom wasn’t reminding me of my love for art just to make me happy. He also wanted me to remember how happy I’d been during that period of my life. How closely linked he’d been with that particular passion of mine.
Problem was, I did remember. I remembered the joy and love perfectly.
Just as I remembered the pain that had followed.
My shoulders stiffened as I stepped into the living room. Dom was sprawled on the sofa, reading the book he’d taken from my place when I was sick. “Made a fire. Figured you might be cold.”
I waited for him to say more. To ask me about why I’d taken off or where I’d been. But Dom just turned another page.
“Thanks,” I said belatedly. “I’m going to go for a shower.”
His eyes stayed fixed on the book. “Is that an invitation?”
“Like you need one,” I muttered before catching myself. “No, it’s not an invitation. We’re not… This is…”
Dom looked up at that, and there was more understanding on his face than I’d been prepared to see. “Stop overthinking, Shadow. Go and shower. I’ll be a good boy.”
I put a hand on my hip. “Since when have you been a good boy?”
“Since I’ve learned I might get rewarded for it.” Dom’s dark eyes were heavy as they rested on me. “I can do all sorts for the right…motivation.”
My tongue flicked over my lip. Yeah, I could imagine just how Dom might be motivated. The things he’d be willing to do to get back in my good graces.
I didn’t need to imagine all of them. He’d already told me a few. I knew all it would take was a few choice words, and Dominic Walker would be at my mercy.
And I’d be forever damned.
Dom stretched and yawned. Thanks to his continued lack of shirt, I had a front-row seat to just how his muscles tightened. My mind drifted to that room as I mapped out the lines in my head. Maybe if I sketch him like this, the image won’t haunt me.
Yeah, that was bullshit.
I pulled at my collar, trying to get some air to my blazing skin. “Maybe we should open some windows. It’s far too hot for a fire.”
Dom’s laugh was like liquid lust. “Or maybe you should try a cold shower, Ry. I think that might help more than you’re prepared to admit.”
“Fuck off,” I snarled, stomping off in the direction of my room. “I don’t need anything like that. I’m fine. This is fine.”
Dom hollered after me, “Is fine a synonym for horny and frustrated? If so, I’m also fine.”
The slam of the door was the only answer I gave him. I didn’t bother to lock it. I knew better than to think it’d stop Dom coming in.
Or is it that you don’t want to stop him?
No. That wasn’t the case. Obviously.
I glared at the shower dial for a moment, setting my jaw stubbornly as I twisted it.
The spray was near scalding when I stepped under it, but I didn’t so much as wince. Fuck Dominic. I didn’t need a cold shower. I wasn’t horny or frustrated.
My aching cock twitched incredulously.
The heat didn’t cool as the day went on.
It simmered under my skin as we fished together, Dom failing as drastically as he had the day before.
It prickled along my hairline as we cooked dinner, silently side by side.
It boiled as I followed him through to the living room after we ate, threatening to cascade out of me at any given moment.
Dom had been uncharacteristically docile. He hadn’t pushed, teased, or cajoled. The innuendos had stopped, and the conversation had been…easy. Surface-level chat designed to get me to lower my guard.
But I was wise to him. I kept my walls high, never revealing more than intended.
I’d done enough of that already.
“Music?” Dom asked, his phone in hand.
“Sure.” Anything had to be better than listening to the constant barrage my brain was subjecting me to. Everything from suggestions of what Dom and I could be doing right now, to how my life would implode if I indulged in a single one of them.
The opening notes drifted through the air and I tensed. Oh, I’d been wrong. This was worse. Much worse.
“This song always makes me think of you,” Dom said as he sat beside me. “Do you remember when we heard it live?”
Like I could forget. Caffeine Daydreams remained one of my favourite bands, and I played their music often, but never this song.
I didn’t answer Dom. Instead, I listened to the lyrics I’d tried so desperately to forget.
All because you do something to me
Something that stops me being lonely
Something that makes me need you
For the love of all that’s holy
Say there’s something
That makes you need me too
“I do need you,” Dom whispered, his eyes burning into the side of my face. “So much it hurts.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I said bitterly, staring into the dancing flames in the fireplace. “But you left, Dom. You promised me everything, and then you just…left.”
“Because you asked me to.” He reached out to touch my hand, but I still didn’t look at him. “It was what you wanted. Right?”
I’d thought it was. But I’d been angry. Young. Foolish. For fuck’s sake, it hadn’t even taken me a few hours to realise the mistake I’d made.
By then, it was already too late.
“I can’t do this,” I rasped, lurching to my feet. “I’m going to bed.”
“Shadow.” Dom’s fingers closed around mine. “Please. Wait.”
“For what?” I asked hoarsely, searching his face. “This won’t end happily, Dom. It never does. Not for us.”
“That was in the past. We’re talking about our future.”
“We’re talking about a pipe dream,” I shot back. “You say you spent ten years thinking about me, but guess what? You also spent ten years ignoring me. Do you have any idea how that felt?”
Dom’s eyes were wide. “I didn’t contact you because that was what you wanted.”
“Right.” I laughed bitterly. “Because we both meant everything we said that night.”
“I did,” Dom said quietly. “Every fucking thing, Shadow.”
“Something” finished, Luca Weston’s voice fading into silence before a new song started. I recognised this one too—“Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” by Jeff Buckley.
The irony of the title alone had the heat rising higher. I should leave. I really should.
But my body wouldn’t move.
“Dance with me,” Dom said huskily, tugging on my hand. “Stop thinking, and just dance.”
My body had no trouble moving now. It led me straight to Dom. My left arm slid around his waist with ease. My right hand clasped his. Our chests brushed as we slowly swayed to the beat.
Dom’s temple rested against mine as he quietly sang along with the lyrics. I squeezed my eyes shut as words of yearning, of a desperate need for another, melted the remaining ice around my heart.
It was enough to have that final confession springing free. The one I’d fought so hard to contain, knowing the damage it would cause. “I did, you know.”
Dom pulled back to frown at me. “You did what?”
“Come over.” I shook my head, realising this was all coming out wrong. Taking a deep breath, I centred myself before speaking again. “That night, when we broke up, I went to find you.”
Dom stopped moving. Stopped dancing. I thought he might’ve stopped breathing. “What?”
Tears pricked at my eyes. “I know what I said that night, but I was a fucking idiot. I realised it pretty quickly. You were right. What we had was too special to throw away over an argument.”
“No,” Dom said, drawing out of my grip. “No, Shadow. You didn’t.”
But it was out there now. I couldn’t take it back.
All I could do was finish the story. To tell Dom what had happened to hurt me the most. The reason I couldn’t let him back in.
He deserved to know; I saw that now. “I might’ve forgotten some details from that night, but not this.
You told me we could stay together. That we could make it through. ”
The firelight illuminated the horror on Dom’s face. “And we could have. I would’ve done anything to make that happen, Shadow.”
“But you didn’t,” I said hollowly. “You were already gone, less than six hours later.”
“Because I thought that was what you wanted,” he repeated desperately.
“I wanted you.” My voice rose to a shout. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Dom. I was a foolish fucking eighteen-year-old. I said things I didn’t mean, and it cost me everything.”
His face was deathly pale as he swayed on the spot. “You really came after me?”
“I planned to.” I dropped heavily onto the sofa. “But by the time I got back, you’d already left. It wasn’t even dawn, Dom. You said you wanted to work things through, but you couldn’t even wait a few hours for me to get there.”
“That’s not fair,” Dom whispered. “You ended things, Ryan. You did, not me. I didn’t want things to end. You know that.”
“But you still left. Early, I might add. With my brother. The person who’d taunted me about you being in love with him. Can’t you see how that looked?”
A long silence followed. So long that I was tempted to check if he was still in the room.
“Yeah. With hindsight, I can see how that looked. I’m sorry, Shadow. If I’d known… If I’d had even the slightest inkling that there was hope, I never would’ve left.”
“You didn’t just leave.” I was staring into the flames again, remembering how I’d longed to burn. Now that I was, I was remembering the pain that came with it. “You cut me out, Dom. There wasn’t a single text or phone call. Not even a letter. Just ten years of silence.”
Dom slumped onto the sofa beside me and put his head in his hands. “I thought that was what you wanted. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Maybe you were. Maybe I was the fool, thinking we could’ve made it work after everything that had happened. I did tell you to leave, you’re right about that. I just…”
“You just what?”
“I didn’t expect you to actually do it,” I said thickly as tears rolled down my cheeks. “You never listened to anything I told you to do before. Why’d that have to be the first?”
A choked sob was his only response.
“I shouldn’t blame you,” I continued. “You’re right.
You did exactly what I asked. It took me too long to realise it wasn’t what I wanted.
I was such a fucking fool, Dom. Really, we should laugh about it.
Do you know I left my window open every night for months on end?
Stupid really. I knew you weren’t coming back. ”
I wasn’t laughing and neither was Dominic. I wiped away tears with the back of my hand. Maybe this was a good thing. We were finally getting everything out in the open. And now…now Dom might understand why we couldn’t go there again.
“It took me a long time to be able to close my window,” I said. “Longer to accept that I’d never hear from you again. I don’t think I fully accepted it until the night you nearly died.”
Dom turned to face me. “What?”
“It was bad enough to know you’d almost died.
But it was worse knowing it could’ve happened and I might not have found out.
” My voice cracked as I admitted a fear I’d hidden even from myself.
“If your dad and I weren’t close, if you had died, how long would it have taken for me to know?
Would Max have called me? Or would I have just been scrolling social media one day, only to be blindsided by the news? ”
“Shadow…” Dom reached for me, but I flinched away.
“That’s what hurt me the most,” I said, needing to get all of this off my chest at once. “You were everything to me, Dom. Everything. Then, suddenly, I was nothing to you.”
“You are and have always been everything to me, Shadow,” Dom said fiercely. Springs creaked, and then Dom was in front of me. He cupped my face, tears streaking down his cheeks as he looked down at me. “I can’t believe you came looking for me. I can’t fucking believe I’d already left.”
“Of course I did. I loved you, Dom.”
He didn’t flinch at the past tense. He could probably see it for the lie it was. But wasn’t that what we’d always done? Our lies were woven into the fabric of what we were. There was no unpicking them now.
A tremor went through Dom as he closed his eyes. “Are you saying that, if I’d stayed, we might have made things work? That you would’ve stayed with me, even though I’d lied to you? While I was stationed overseas and thousands of miles away?”
My throat tightened. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
Dom hung his head. His chest expanded then hollowed. “I do.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I would’ve forgiven you anything, Dom. I loved you that much. I would’ve coped with all of it if it meant being part of your life still.”
His hands fell away. They hung limply at his sides, like all the strength had left him. “And you wanted to tell me that…but I’d already left.”
My heart cracked at the pain in his voice. The anguish that was mirrored in my own chest. I reached up to touch him. “Dom—”
“Excuse me,” he said stiffly, stepping back. “I need a minute.”
My hand hung in the air as he disappeared from the room. The patio door opened, a brisk breeze stirring the flames.
On its heels was the sound of Dominic’s yell. An inarticulate bleeding of his soul that he released into the world. I heard every bit of his pain. His frustration. His regret over what once was.
Over what could have been.
I dropped my head into my hands as sobs wracked me.
Outside, I suspected Dom was doing the same. I’d thought our hearts couldn’t break again, but I’d been wrong.
All it had taken was a single confession. A realisation of what had truly been lost.
And there, with only the wilderness as our witness, we remembered our past. We recognised the present we were trapped in.
And mourned the future that would never be ours.